exile" (14)- para participar en el process de interpretaciones political y

representatividad del sujeto indigena.

 The process of cultural representation is seen in the camps, where Mayas are
 engaged in a constant struggle to make themselves visible in a world that works to
 dehumanize them and erase them from public view. Their struggles, which
 sometimes result in division and conflict, are exploited by those, both Mayas and
 nom-Mayas who wish to gain political advantage from their turmoil. Here my
 efforts as a Maya scholar are strongly directed toward the revitalization of Maya
 cultures, and this revitalization transcends much of the divisive fallout of living
 under difficult conditions. (14)

La posici6n que Montejo mantiene es la de observador comprometido, capaz de presentar

al lector una perspective a la vez internal y externa del exilio, sin por ello ocultar el

entramado de conflicts y divisions que esta por detras: su identidad etnica le confiere el

derecho a ejercer mas facilmente una mirada critical frente a su cultural; simultaneamente,

esa mirada tiene el espesor de lo que Montejo consider su double identidad, "the

advantage of a Western education and a Maya upbringing" (11).

 Estos elements -su particular lugar de enunciacion como teorizador de frontera y

la voluntad de no ocultar o simplificar para uso externo la textura conflictiva del universe

que describe-son puntos de partida conscientes en Voices from Exile,1 y habian sido

estructuralmente constitutivos en Testimonio, redactado doce afios antes. Sin embargo,

ninguno de estos dos textos consigue por si mismo desestabilizar la representatividad

monolitica del de Menchu, fundamentalmente porque son posteriores a el y carecieron

del primer impact que este tuvo. Ademas, como procure demostrar en el primer capitulo,

la elecci6n del modelo generico y las estrategias narrativas utilizadas en Me llamo



1 "I am within the tradition of Maya intellectuals and scholars, advocates of pan-Mayanism, Maya cultural
revival, and Maya self-representation (Warren 1997). In this work [Voices from Exile] I often take on the
roles of informant and ethnographer at the same time. My task is to decolonize this Maya experience of
exile and to write critically from my insider perspective about its causes and outcomes" (Montejo, Voices
12-13).